Door blocking board for boxcars



Feb. 11, 1941.

F. KOZIOLEK DOOR BLOCKING BOARD FOR BOXCARS Filed Aug. 19, 1938 INVENTOR. ZZ'U-THNK fibzzaLazc A ORNEY.

Patented Feb. 11, 1941 DOORBLOCKING BOARD FOR BGXCARS Frank Koziolek, Michigan City, Ind.

Application August 19,

3 Claims.

The invention relates to means for closing the doors of the freight cars which are loaded with grain in bulk, such as barley, corn, wheat, etc. The purpose of the invention is to provide such means as would be simple in construction, easily installed in the doors of the respective car and which would be tight enough so as toprevent any seepage from within. Another purpose is to provide such means that could be easily removed and easily stored within the car, but in such a manner as to utilize the minimum amount of space so as to not interfere with loading or to decrease the loading capacity of the freight car.

I am aware that a number of attempts have been made in this direction and that means have been devised in the form of separate boards which were transversely disposed in the door of the cars. These means, however, have not proved entirely practical for the reason that removal of the boards from the door and the storage thereof within the car was too difficult, requiring too much time in arrangement of said boards or too much space when so arranged. My intention, therefore, was to provide improved means of that type and to eliminate all such disadvantages. With this object in View, my invention consists essentially in arrangement, combination and construction of parts, which will be described hereinafter with reference to the accompanying drawing, in which:

Fig. 1 shows a perspective view-of a freight car with my improved boards in place.

Fig. 2 shows a vertical sectional view taken on line 2-2 of Fig. 1.

Fig. 3 shows a fractional perspective view of the door opening and the guiding rail for my boards.

Fig. 4 shows a fragmentary view of the guiding rail and the roof to which it is attached.

Fig. 5 is a perspective view of a part of a door closing unit, that is my improved board.

Fig. 6 is a perspective view of a deviceto keep the boards in place.

Fig. 7 is a horizontal cross-sectionalview taken on line 1-1 of Fig. 2.

Similar numerals refer to similar parts throughout the several views.

For the purpose of illustrating the arrangement of parts of my improvement, I am showing in my illustration an ordinary freight car comprising a floor I8 and side walls 19. The latter are lined up to the roof line with sheet metal 20, the lining being spaced from the wall. The car is covered with a curved roof 24 supported by said walls, and is provided ordinarily 1938, Serial No. 225,784

with side doors indicated in Fig. 1 by numeral II. There is ordinarily one door on one side of the car and another door at the opposite side thereof. For ordinary purposes, the doors are of f the sliding type mounted on rollers. When, how- 5' ever, grain is to be loaded into a car, the ordinary sliding door is not suflicient and satisfactory and it is here that my improved boards for closing doors of freight cars become useful. To employ my said invention, a very slight change 10 in the construction of a part of the car is needed. It is even possible to install the necessary parts in any boxcar as it is used at present without any changes. r r

The unit of the means used by me for closingthe doors is a board l3 which may be made entirely out of metal. When made of wood, it is reenforced at its ends by a metal angle plate or angle iron M, which is affixed to the board by means of nails or screws l5. Welded to said 20 angle plate is a big l6, said lug being affixed to the upper half portion of said plate M. The lug is about one-fourth as wide as the board, although these dimensions are not critical and may be varied Within the limits to convenience and within the limits of the purpose for which these boards are intended. The upper and lower edges of said board are disposed in parallel relationship to each other but at an acute angle to the plane of the body of said board, the purpose 30 of the slanting edges being to effect a better abutment of the adjoining boards. This feature, however, is of minor importance and may be varied so as to obtain the best results. I am using a number of these boards for each door, the ends 35 of the boards being guided by guiding rails 2|. The general relation of the boards to the guiding rails 2| is shown in Fig. 1.

Now to describe my improvement in detail, I wish to say that the car contemplated in con- 40 nection with my invention contains a rail 2| affixed to each side of the door to side wall i9, as shown in Fig. 7, said rail extending upward to the roof and curving transversely with respect to the length of the car under the roof of said car as shown in Fig. 2. Said rail 2| may be described as being composed of two U-shaped oppositely disposed but integrally connected members, of which one 23 forms a track or channel, and member 22 forms a frame of the door opening of thefreight car. The channel is just wide enough to accommodate lugs l6 but widens materially in its continuation where it curves under the roof 24. The component part 23 of the rail 2| is somewhat shallower than the opposed shoulder 30 of the guiding rail 2|.

part 22, this arrangement resulting in the formation of a shoulder 30. The purpose of the shoulder will be shown presently.

Two such guiding rails are erected on each side of the door ll. Individual boards [3 extend across the doorway in such a manner that lugs It at each end of the boards are slidably held in channels 23. While so disposed, these boards may be moved up and down, guided by said channels as the need may arise. When, for instance, the car is to be loaded with grain, said boards are slid down in their tracks or channels 23 as shown in Fig. 2, the end sections of the boards leaning against the aforesaid In this position, as shown in Fig. 2, these boards being set one above the other and in close abutment therewith, form together a solid panel or wall which is rigidly held in place. This is due partly to the fact that lugs [6 are held in channels 23 and partly to the fact that boards l3 are thrust by the weight of the load in the car, against shoulder 30.

When it is necessary to remove these boards, they may be slid upward into the section which curves unto the roof. Here, however, the channel being wider, the boards are capable of assuming a position at an angle to the direction of said channel, a part of each board extending above the channel and a part thereof being below said channel. When a number of these boards are stacked against each other, they have the appearance of the members of a Venetian shutter. Thus a number of these boards may be stacked together in such a manner that they 'occupy a very small amount of space and are out of the way of men working within the car. It is to be noticed that should the lugs be narrower then they are, then the boards, shoved into the curving channel under the roof of the car, would by their own weight assume an upright position and would need a larger clearance between the rail containing the channel and the roof. On the other hand, were these boards to be disposed entirely fiat following the curve of the roof, they would occupy too muchspace. As a matter of fact, the space provided under said roof would not be sufficient to accommodate all the boards which are needed to block a door of the freight car. It will be seen, therefore, that by this novel arrangement of providing boards with lugs which are wider than the width of the channel in which they slide, it became possible to stack a number of boards in a very limited space.

A provision had to be made to keep these boards under the roof once they have been shoved there and this is accomplished by a very simple contrivance shown in Fig. 6. Briefly, it consists of two leaf springs 25 affixed to the roof at their respective ends 26, the opposite ends 21 being turned upward and being adapted to project into the channels 23 at each side of the door into the path of lugs 16 aflixed to units I3. This arrangement is shown in Fig. 4.

The two leaf springs are connected by transverse bar 28 to which a cord 29 may be attached.

jecting members 21 are withdrawn from the channels 23. When this is done, the boards will slide down into the upright section of the channels by their own gravity. If necessary, they may be guided by hand. To facilitate this, each board is provided with a slot ll into which fingers may be inserted. Since every freight car has two doors and two sets of channels are required at the opposite sides of the car, it would be possible to have these channels connected at the top of the roof, but to avoid the possibility of having boards I3 slide over from one side of the car to the other, where they would not fit, it is desirable to have a partition inserted into the channel in the center of the roof or to have each channel terminate at that point.

Upon having thus described my improvement, I wish to say that some changes may be made in the construction of my boards and the general arrangement of parts without departing from the spirit of my invention. I would like to secure a protection for all such changes as are within the spirit of my improvement. What I, therefore, claim is as follows:

1. Improved means to close the door of a freight car, comprising guiding rails on each side of the door, provided with channel tracks therein leading upward under the roof of the car where said channel tracks widen, a plurality of movable boards adapted to be stacked under the roof diagonally with respect to the tracks but substantially parallel to each other, each board being provided at each end with a fiat lug disposed in the plane of the board but being wider than the width of the channel tracks under the roof of the car, said lugs extending from each board above the line of its center of gravity so that said boards tend to assume an upright position when stacked.

2. Improved means to close the door of a freight car, comprising channel tracks on each side of the door leading upward under the roof of the car, a plurality of movable boards, each board being provided at each end with a flat lug disposed in the plane of the board but being wider than the width of the channel tracks, said lugs extending from each board above the line of its center of gravity so that the boards when stacked under the roof assume by their own weight an inclined position with respect to the direction of the tracks and are frictionally held in place thereby.

3. In a railway car having side walls, a roof, and linings for the side Walls spaced inwardly therefrom, the side Walls being formed with doorways and the linings terminating along oppos'ite side edges of the doorways, channeled members extending vertically along opposite sides of each doorway between the side wall through which the doorway is formed and side edge portions of the lining at opposite sides of the doorway with upper portions of the channeled members extending above the linings and transversely under the roof, the channeled members being S-shaped in cross section to provide channeled portions facing away from the doorway and secured against the side wall and the roof and other channeled portions secured against the lining and constituting tracks confronting the doorway and separated from the first mentioned channeled portions by portions constituting abutment shoulders projecting from the tracks, and doors for closing the doorways extending vertically when closed and slidably mounted in the tracks for movement from a closed position across the doorways to an opened position under the roof.

' FRANK KOZIOLEK. 

